Which Top 50 Living Artists Performed Surprisingly Well at Auction in 2014?

Which Top 50 Living Artists Performed Surprisingly Well at Auction in 2014?

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Adrian GhenieCourtesy Tim Van Laere Gallery

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Jenny Saville Photo via: the Telegraph

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Alex Israel Photo: Courtesy of Art Observers

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Hurvin Anderson Photo via: the Independent

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Ronald Ventura Photo via: Bloulin Art Info

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Rudolf Stingel Photo via: Erik Sommer

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Wang Xingwei Photo via: cafa art info

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Zhao Bandi Photo via: newshome.us

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Zhang Enli Photo via: Mechanical Dummy

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Liu Dan Photo via: Architectural Digest

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Martin Puryear Photo via: glogster

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David HammonsCourtesy Timothy Greenfield Sanders

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Wang Guangle Photo via: cafa art info

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Ma Xinle Courtesy Elisabeth Wang Gallery

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R.H. Quaytman Photo via: cacha.boston

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Dana Schutz Photo via: blogspot

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Cady Noland

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David Ostrowski Photo via: i-D

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Wang Jianwei Courtesy the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

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Rosemarie Trockel Courtesy Museum Ludwig

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Yang Fudong Photo via: films4peace

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Doris Salcedo Photo via: pbs

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Liu Xiaodong Photo via: teamyello

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Christian Rosa Courtesy Art Los Angeles Fair

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Antony Gormley Photo via: the Guardian

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Benedicto Cabrera Photo via: blogspot

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Michaël BorremansPhoto: Flandern Info

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Makoto Saito Photo via: ssahn.com

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Haim Steinbach Photo via: New York Observer

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Tracey Emin Photo via: mydaily

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Xiao HanPhoto: Courtesy Saatchi Art

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Jeff Elrod Photo: Courtey Paoblo Curti Gallery

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Jeffrey Gibson Photo via: swerve+

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Jordan Wolfson Photo via: complex

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Tauba Auerbach Photo via: Aires Bien Chéveres.

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Sarah Lucas Photo via: the Telegraph

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Marina AbramovićPhoto: Manfred Werner / TsuiVia: Wikimedia Commons.

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Ayman Baalbaki Photo via: wallpaper

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Richard Learoyd Photo via: flickr

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Fang Lijun Photo via: artspeakchina

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Catherine Opie Photo via: walkerartcenter.org

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Albert Oehlen Photo via: Interview Magazine

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Lucien Smith Photo via: The New York Times

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Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Photo via: afroklectic

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Elizabeth Peyton Photo via: zimbo

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Rolando ì Olanî C. Ventura Photo via: The Star

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Wu Gaozhong Photo via: floriophoto

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Yang Maoyuan Photo via: blogspot

Which 50 living artists performed incredibly well at auction in 2014? The editors at artnet news were pondering this very question, as the auction season is now over and the year is coming to an end.

artnet owns the world’s largest and most comprehensive price database for secondary market sales of fine and decorative art, so we decided to go visit the people on the analytics team (thanks, artnet analytics) and asked them to crunch some numbers. They determined how best to create a list for us, and we hereby publish the findings.

For each artwork lot offered for sale at an auction house in 2014, our database records the reserve price as well the realized price (among many other metrics). For instance, if an artwork is estimated to sell for $1 million, at its high end, and sells for $2 million, the difference between the realized and estimated price is $1 million.

We examined the 18,079 living artists (as far as we know) whose works have been offered for sale by auction houses in 2014 in order to find the artists achieving the greatest price increases over the initial high estimates. We did take into account, of course, that there was not always a range or spread of artworks offered for sale, so we excluded artists for whom there were only one or two recorded secondary market transactions in 2014.

For each of the artists below, we list two key dollar amounts. The first, the maximum difference in US dollars, represents the greatest spread between a single lot’s high estimate and its price realized at auction (including premium). The second number represents the average spread between the price realized at auction and each lot’s high estimate when all of the artist’s lots are taken as a group.

For more information about top lots, including the name of individual works, or comparable sales, or to research other artists, we invite readers to visit the artnet Price Database at artnet.com.

1. Adrian Ghenie, Romanian
Romanian–born artist Adrian Ghenie’s haunting and multilayered images reference a number of sources such as news, media, classic films and social media sites, often depicting figures that appear gnawed and slashed, blurred and speckled. His work has been widely exhibited, including at Tate Liverpool, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $1,841,115
Average difference in in US dollars: $301,645
Number of lots sold in 2014: 10

2. Jenny Saville, BritishJenny Saville is a British painter, most widely recognized for her monumental images of nudes, which often fill the canvas to the point where they seem to spill out. The figures frequently appear dramatically foreshortened and are mostly of women. She also sometimes includes her own body within her work. Saville has exhibited her work in galleries around the world, and was a lecturer at the Slade School of Art in London.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $1,495,008
Average difference in in US dollars: $269,840
Number of lots sold in 2014: 5

3. Alex Israel, American
Alex Israel is a painter and installation artist originally from Los Angeles. Growing up in close proximity to Hollywood, Israel’s art considers Hollywood culture and the cult of celebrity. For a recent video series “As It Lays,” the artist hosted a parody talk show in collaboration with Reena Spaulings Fine Art gallery for which he conducted a number of interviews with celebrities to whom he proposed banal and awkward questions.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $725,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $247,117
Number of lots sold in 2014: 5

4. Hurvin Anderson, British
Born in Birmingham in England, Hurvin Anderson’s work explores themes of memory, identity and cross-culturalism. Anderson’s art is profoundly influenced by his experience as a second generation Jamaican immigrant, and often evokes the idea of being caught between two places. The process behind each of Anderson’s canvases is extremely particular and laborious. He often begins with a photograph which triggers the emotions he wants to explore, before creating a collage, then a drawing which will eventually transform into a painting.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $1,567,804
Average difference in in US dollars: $206,138
Number of lots sold in 2014: 7

5. Ronald Ventura, FilipinoRonald Ventura is a Filipino artist most recognized for his multi-layered paintings incorporating an extensive range of imagery and tending to focus around the human form. Not just limited to painting, Ventura also works in sculpture, and explores similar themes in these works too. His first solo exhibition, called “All Souls Day,” was in 2000, and was held at the Drawing Room in Makati City, Philippines. A year later, in 2001, he was awarded the Artist of the Year prize from Art Manila.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $882,228
Average difference in in US dollars: $144,115
Number of lots sold in 2014: 23

6. Rudolf Stingel, Italian
Italian born conceptual artist Rudolf Stingel is possibly best known for his installations covering exhibition spaces with monochrome carpets. His works have, in the past, incorporated a wide range of materials, such as rubber, carpet, Styrofoam, and paint. For a retrospective of his work at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2007, he covered the walls with metallic Celotex and encouraged visitors to inscribe the soft surface. He lives and works in New York and Murano, Italy.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $785,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $140,765
Number of lots sold in 2014: 22

7. Wang Xingwei, Chinese
Wang Xingwei is a Chinese artist whose career began in Haicheng in northeastern China in the early 1990s. The majority of his artistic study came from reproductions of paintings from the European Renaissance to post-Impressionism that he found in books. His paintings, though hugely varied, often display the same characters encountering fictitious and wild scenarios. and are frequently depicted in a humorous manner. He lives and works in Shanghai.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $889,164
Average difference in in US dollars: $139,365
Number of lots sold in 2014: 6

8. Zhao Bandi, Chinese
Zhao Bandi is a painter, photographer and installation artist. Living and working in Beijing, Zhao is considered one of the most humorous contemporary Chinese artists. He rose to significance with his staged scenarios in which he starred alongside a toy panda, acting out every day scenarios with the panda as either child or lover. Although undeniably amusing, the works also raised more serious questions regarding mass media and mass production, and specifically issues relating to his native China.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $350,843
Average difference in in US dollars: $105,167
Number of lots sold in 2014: 4

9. Zhang Enli, Chinese
Chinese artist Zhang Enli’s work focuses on themes involving humanity and solitude, highlighting details of objects that are rarely given much attention in conventional painting. Traditional Chinese ink painting can be seen to influence Zhang’s work, and his paint is diluted so much that it appears almost as a glaze. This technique creates an effect that makes the objects he depicts appear not entirely present. He currently lives in Shanghai and has exhibited across the globe, including at Hauser & Wirth gallery in New York.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $366,149
Average difference in in US dollars: $100,523
Number of lots sold in 2014: 9

10. Liu Dan, Chinese
Liu Dan’s works mostly consist of paintings of landscapes, flowers and “Guai Shi” (odd stones) although often the exact subject of his artworks remain unclear. Born in 1953 in Nanjing, Jiangsu, he studied traditional painting at Jiangsu Academy of Chinese Painting, Hangzhou, from 1978 to 1981 before moving to the US in 1981. He returned to China in 2006 and now resides in Beijing.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $207,600
Average difference in in US dollars: $91,969
Number of lots sold in 2014: 5

11. Martin Puryear, American
Martin Puryear originally began his artistic career working in painting, drawing and printmaking, but gradually began focusing purely on sculpture. His works are recognizable for their organic forms that evoke craft making, and often include particular cultural associations. In his youth, he studied crafts and learned how to build guitars, furniture, and canoes and his commitment to traditional building methods in his sculpture perhaps reflect this. Puryear has won a number of awards, as well as being elected in 1992 to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and receiving an honorary doctorate from Yale University in 1994.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $1,005,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $91,561
Number of lots sold in 2014: 6

12. David Hammons, American
American installation and performance artist David Hammons gained significant recognition within the art world during the 1970s, when issues of race, politics and sexuality were dominating artistic expression. Often working with unusual materials, such as elephant dung, chicken wings and dreadlock clippings, Hammons’s first major work ‘body prints’ was created by covering his own body with margarine before pressing himself onto sheets of paper and dusting the impression with powdered pigment.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $1,025,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $88,583
Number of lots sold in 2014: 12

13. Wang Guangle, Chinese
Born in 1976 in Fujian, Wang Guangle gained a BFA in oil painting from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2000. Arguably his most recognized work is a series of paintings titled Coffin Paint for which the artist applied a line of acrylic paint onto his canvases twice a day. The idea stems from the ancient Chinese tradition of elderlies painting a coffin every year until they die from when they turn 60. Wang has exhibited internationally, including at Pace Gallery in New York.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $507,725
Average difference in in US dollars: $84,570
Number of lots sold in 2014: 5

14. Ma Xinle, American/Chinese
Ma Xinle is a Chinese artist living and working in Beijing and Shanghai. Inspired by animal paintings, in particular those of Huang Zhou, which are vivid, lifelike and portrayed with great spirit, Ma too specializes in paintings of animals. After graduating from the Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts and Ohio State University, he taught at the University of Missouri.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $437,284
Average difference in in US dollars: $77,758
Number of lots sold in 2014: 6

15. R.H. Quaytman, American
R. H. Quaytman is a Boston-born New York–based artist whose wide range of work uses diverse techniques incorporating autobiographical content. Painting onto plywood panels, which are then usually silk screened with photographs or other images, her work can either be interpreted individually, or within the series (called “chapters”) that she creates them. Quaytman has been exhibiting her work since the 1980s, and has had a number of shows across the US.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $415,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $76,269
Number of lots sold in 2014: 7

16. Dana Schutz, American
American Dana Schutz started painting when she was 15 and graduated from Columbia University in 2002 with an MFA. Citing such major 19th and 20th-century painters as Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Salvador Dalí as her inspirations, Schutz executes her work mostly in oil on canvas, and often portrays unusual figures partaking in violent or bizarre activities. She gained serious recognition for her 2004 series “Self Eaters,” which depicts grotesque beings consuming their own bodies and faces in a primitive style evocative of Goya’s.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $429,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $75,594
Number of lots sold in 2014: 9

17. Cady Noland, American
American Artist Cady Noland explores a mixture of Pop art and minimalist sculpture and installation. Born in Washington, she had her first solo exhibition at White Columns in New York City in 1989. Noland’s work explores the intersection between the fantasy and reality of American identity, as well as consumer culture and mass media. Her work often incorporates everyday objects, including police barricades, tabloid photographs, newspapers, and construction materials.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $389,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $75,247
Number of lots sold in 2014: 4

18. David Ostrowski, German
David Ostrowski’s minimalistic work focuses on the actual nature of painting, and experiments with imperfection, often incorporating mistakes into the pictorial composition. His paintings, predominantly white, incorporate little amounts of color and are created from a combination of oil and lacquer. The artist will be exhibited at the Rubell Family Collection/Contemporary Arts Foundation from December 3, 2014, through May 29, 2015.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $211,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $67,126
Number of lots sold in 2014: 25

19. Walton Ford, American
New York–based artist Walton Ford’s large-scale watercolor paintings are heavily influenced by artists from the Naturalist Illustration Movement. The works, which are often fantastical, reveal the sometimes violent and strange moments at the crossing of human culture and the natural world. Frequently incorporating elements referenced from Colonial literature, his art also sometimes includes jokes and symbols.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $845,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $66,619
Number of lots sold in 2014: 12

20. Wang Jianwei, Chinese
Born in 1958 in Sichuan Province, China, Wang Jianwei’s experimental work pushes the boundaries of contemporary art. Working in sculpture, performance and installation art, Wang explores with the concept that the creation of art can be continuous, connecting theater, visual art, and film. He has exhibited in China and across Europe.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $300,397
Average difference in in US dollars: $58,924
Number of lots sold in 2014: 7

21. Rosemarie Trockel, GermanRosemarie Trockel is a German Contemporary artist who addresses themes of sexuality, feminism, culture and artistic production in her work. She is arguably most recognized for her “knitting pictures,” which are constructed from wool stretched onto fabric and are satirical observations on the stereotypically feminine occupation of knitting. They are patterned with computer-generated geometrical motifs or familiar logos. In 2014, she was awarded the Roswitha Haftmann-Preis.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $2,981,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $57,919
Number of lots sold in 2014: 35

22. Yang Fudong, Chinese
Yang Fudong is a Shanghai-based artist and one of China’s most well-known contemporary artists. Working in film and video installations, his work considers identity through myth, personal memory and lived experience. Yang has had more than 60 solo shows at acclaimed institutions as well as participating in a large number of prestigious international art events. The Australian Centre for Moving Image will host a show of the artists work from December 4, 2014, through March 15, 2015.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $165,025
Average difference in in US dollars: $56,776
Number of lots sold in 2014: 5

23. Doris Salcedo, Colombian
Born and brought up in Colombia, Doris Salcedo studied first at the Universidad de Bogotá before continuing her education at New York University. A sculptor and installation artist, Salcedo’s work is deeply affected by the troubled political condition of her native Colombia. Her art sees her thoroughly investigate the impacts of trauma and brutality in the Third World, often incorporating multimedia and, in particular, objects of the everyday, such as bed linens, buttons, and human hair.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $115,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $56,688
Number of lots sold in 2014: 2

24. Liu Xiaodong, Chinese
Liu Xiadong is a Chinese figurative artist whose works often allude to social issues. He frequently depicts people at the margins of society, such as sex workers and the homeless, and the strong documentary element within his work reflects his own passionate interest for documentary cinema. Based in Beijing, Liu has exhibited at a number of prominent international institutions, such as the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $145,898
Average difference in in US dollars: $55,341
Number of lots sold in 2014: 2

25. Christian Rosa, Brazilian
Christian Rosa is a Brazilian-born, LA–based artist who works in a number of mediums but primarily focuses on collage and painting. His minimalist canvases are notable in their dealing with mistakes that are moved, re-appropriated and reconfigured in order to explore the notion of failure. Discussing what he loves in painting, the artist has said: “The dark side: failing, getting back on your feet, and confronting problems in the best way.”
Maximum difference in US dollars: $155,319
Average difference in in US dollars: $53,141
Number of lots sold in 2014: 7

26. Antony Gormley, British
Acclaimed British sculptor and installation artist, Antony Gormley‘s work investigates the relationship of the human body to space. Profoundly affected by his studies (he studied archaeology, anthropology, and art history at Trinity College, Cambridge, before moving to India and Sri Lanka to study Buddhist meditation), Gormley uses the human form to consider human existence in relation to the world. In 1994 he was awarded the Turner Prize for “Field,” a series of installations made in collaboration with different communities, and in 1998 he created The Angel of the North, a 20-meter tall statue outside Newcastle in northern England.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $1,700,948
Average difference in in US dollars: $51,119
Number of lots sold in 2014: 43

27. Benedicto Cabrera, Filipino
Philippine born artist Benedicto Cabrera, or BenCab, received a BA in Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines in 1963 and soon after began to make a name for himself on the Philippine art scene. Working in painting and printmaking, Cabrera has won a number of art awards, such as the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining (Cultural Center of the Philippines Award for the Arts) and has been exhibited internationally.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $387,417
Average difference in in US dollars: $48,186
Number of lots sold in 2014: 14

28. Michaël Borremans, BelgianMichaël Borremans’s unusual and distinctive paintings present haunting and unsettling subjects, often close-up studies of individuals, appearing as though they are in a semi-state. In addition to his portraits, Borremans also creates landscapes which evoke a similar emotion, an effect created by brushstrokes that alternate between hazy fluidity and smoky solidity. The artist will be exhibiting at the Dallas Museum of Art from March 15 through July 5, 2015.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $1,088,846
Average difference in in US dollars: $45,049
Number of lots sold in 2014: 13

29. Makoto Saito, Japanese
Japanese graphic designer and more recently artist Makoto Saito dramatically distorts his subjects through the incorporation of miniature pools of color that blur and alter the original image. His posters are included in the collections of a number of many museums, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $205,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $44,739
Number of lots sold in 2014: 6

30. Haim Steinbach, American
Born in Rehovot, Israel, Haim Steinbach is a sculptor and installation artist, who moved to New York in the 1950s and became an active part of the East Village art scene of the 1970s and ’80s. His works typically consist of displays of an assortment of mass-produced objects on sleek-looking shelves, exploring themes of contemporary consumer culture and our psychic attachments to things. The artist currently lives and works in New York.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $65,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $43,189
Number of lots sold in 2014: 2

31. Tracey Emin, British
Famed Young British Artist Emin is most recognized for her confessional and provocative works, which include famous pieces such as “Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995” and “My Bed.” Her work is strongly informed by her troubled childhood and adolescent years. In 2007, at age 44, she was made a Royal Academician.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $2,308,418
Average difference in in US dollars: $42,713
Number of lots sold in 2014: 46

32. Xiao Han, Chinese
Xiao Han was born in China in 1982. She attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University and, when she graduated, began working first as a design assistant and then as a high school teacher. Xiao Han is perhaps most recognized for her portraits, which are recognizable for their obscured faces, generating a sense of loneliness and isolation, and earning her comparisons to Francis Bacon.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $315,354
Average difference in in US dollars: $39,266
Number of lots sold in 2014: 27

33. Jeff Elrod, American
Jeff Elrod’s abstract paintings combine the use of computer software, such as Photoshop, and also hand-painted elements. He often draws and reworks imagery on the computer before rendering it on canvas in materials such as acrylic paint and tape. Elrod is particularly influenced by late 20thcentury abstraction as well as the rise of software and print technology.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $153,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $39,214
Number of lots sold in 2014: 8

34. Jeffrey Gibson, American
Jeffrey Gibson creates geometric abstract paintings and sculpture. His works display both Native American and modernist influences and frequently incorporate a number of different materials, often from everyday life, such as mirrors, punching bags, ironing boards. He has exhibited across the globe, including in the UK, China, France, and the US.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $50,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $38,750
Number of lots sold in 2014: 2

35. Oscar Murillo, Colombian
Composed of rough-hewn, stitched canvases that often combine fragments of text, dirt and dust, Murillo’s large scale paintings imply action, performance, and chaos. In addition to painting, the artist also creates video and performance works. He has exhibited at David Zwirner, the Serpentine Gallery in London, the South London Gallery, and the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, to name just a few. From December 14 through April 5, 2015 he will be part of a group exhibition (“The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World”) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $273,710
Average difference in in US dollars: $36,892
Number of lots sold in 2014: 30

36. Jordan Wolfson, American
Working in a varied range of media, including video, sculpture, installation, photography, and performance, Jordan Wolfson’s work is inspired by the Internet and advertising, and often incorporates animated animals. This year the artist took part in in “14 Rooms,” which was curated by Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist and was exhibited during Art Basel in June. In 2009, the artist was awarded the Cartier Award from the Frieze Foundation.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $95,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $36,602
Number of lots sold in 2014: 3

37. Tauba Auerbach, AmericanTauba Auerbach is a painter, photographer, printmaker, and installation artist based in New York. Auerbach’s work explores the relationships between written language and meaning, between two-dimensional and three-dimensional states, and between order and chance. She has received a number of awards, including the the Artist Research Fellowship from the Smithsonian Institute in 2011.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $605,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $29,744
Number of lots sold in 2014: 27

38. Sarah Lucas, British
An active member of the Young British Artists during the 1990s, Sarah Lucas graduated from Goldsmiths College in 1987. Lucas is arguably best recognized for her direct, confrontational and often provocative self-portraits, and has addressed a number of sexual stereotypes in her work. She works predominantly in photography, sculpture, and performance. Lucas is currently exhibited at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $219,559
Average difference in in US dollars: $28,531
Number of lots sold in 2014: 11

39. Marina Abramović, Serbian
Serbian-born Marina Abramović has pioneered performance as an art form, using the body as both subject and medium. Her work often explores the limits of the human body, and has included her undergoing physical pain, exhaustion, and danger. She has also travelled extensively for her work, perhaps most famously to the mountains of Tibet and the Great Wall of China. She has exhibited her work globally, including in New York, Japan and Switzerland.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $93,810
Average difference in in US dollars: $27,944
Number of lots sold in 2014: 13

40. Ayman Baalbaki, Lebanese
Ayman Baalbaki is a Lebanese painter and installation artist living and working in Beirut. Born in 1975, Baalbaki was brought up during the time of the Lebanese civil war, and much of his artistic inspiration stems from this conflict. His work often portrays the struggles of those living among the many conflicts affecting the Middle East. Baalbaki has exhibited his work extensively, including at the 54th Venice Biennale, in an exhibition titled “The Future of a Promise.”
Maximum difference in US dollars: $69,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $26,487
Number of lots sold in 2014: 7

41. Richard Learoyd, British
Richard Learoyd is a British-born photographer, recognized for his life-size photographic portraits and still lifes, which are created through the traditional method of the camera obscura. Through the use of a room-sized camera, which is separated from the object by a lens and placed in a separate room, Learoyd produces extremely detailed but remarkably clear and sharp photographs. His work is included in collections at the Tate, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $25,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $25,000
Number of lots sold in 2014: 1

42. Fang Lijun, Chinese
Fang Lijun is a contemporary Chinese artist, and one of the foremost advocates of the Cynical Realist movement of the 1990s. Growing up among China’s Cultural Revolution, Fang’s works look at contemporary cultural values in China. Often incorporating imagery from pop culture, folk art, and traditional Chinese painting, his work conveys feelings of disappointment, anxiety and revolution. Mostly created on large canvases, Fang’s paintings are recognizable for their often featuring bald and hostile-looking figures.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $3,154,599
Average difference in in US dollars: $24,914
Number of lots sold in 2014: 30

43. Catherine Opie, AmericanCatherine Opie is an American artist born in Ohio, whose portraits and landscapes consider ideas of gender, sexuality and American cultural identity. Her work closely examines the ways in which communities form and are defined, in addition to the ways that architecture helps to shape identities. Opie most notable self-portraits might be a series in which she considers her role as mother and partner.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $233,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $24,753
Number of lots sold in 2014: 9

44. Albert Oehlen, GermanAlbert Oehlen is a German artist, heavily associated with the German Neo-Expressionist and Neue Wilde movements. He is also recognized for his artistic collaborations, including with artists Martin Kippenberger, Georg Herold and Jörg Immendorff. Oehlen uses a variety of techniques, including collage, expressive gesture, and computer generated techniques to create abstract works which challenge traditional categories of art such as still lifes and nudes.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $1,170,067
Average difference in in US dollars: $24,711
Number of lots sold in 2014: 30

45. Lucien Smith, American
Born in 1989, Lucien Smith rose to prominence with his Rain paintings of 2011, which he created using paint-filled fire extinguishers. His work merges a number of art genres and styles, and often incorporates layered oil on canvas with areas of molding paste and detritus mixed in. He has exhibited across the US and was named by gallerist David Zwiner as an “artist to watch.”
Maximum difference in US dollars: $272,667
Average difference in in US dollars: $24,701
Number of lots sold in 2014: 45

46. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, British
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye was born in London in 1977. A painter, poet, and writer, she is most recognized for her large figurative oil portraits. Her work is unusual for the fact that her subjects, which are mostly black men and women, are created not from models but from her own imagination and memory. Her figures are mostly depicted in simple and plain attire, allowing them to adopt a time and place separate from contemporary society. In 2013, Yiadom-Boakye was nominated for the Turner Prize.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $137,677
Average difference in in US dollars: $24,013
Number of lots sold in 2014: 13

47. Elizabeth Peyton, American
American painter Elizabeth Peyton was born in Connecticut in 1965. Arguably best recognized for her paitnings of celebrities and musicians, Peyton’s images are often rendered in a manner that idealizes and feminizes her subjects, as can be seen in her portraits of American musician Kurt Cobain. She has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $545,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $22,108
Number of lots sold in 2014: 16

48. Rolando ìOlanî C. Ventura, Indonesian
Indonesian artist, Rolando ì Olanî C. Ventura was born in 1976. His signature works are images of iconic figures or paintings which he inverts and flips into a negative. He has exhibited in a number of galleries and exhibition spaces in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore, and has had a number of his works sell at auction.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $39,329
Average difference in in US dollars: $21,980
Number of lots sold in 2014: 2

49. Nick Darmstaedter, American
Nick Darmstaedter is an American artist who was born in Los Angeles in 1988. Known for his active involvement with New York–based arts organization The Still House Group, his work is not aligned to one particular medium or material, and often incorporates found objects, arranged in a way that emphasizes the materials’ physical properties and original forms. His work is reminiscent of the American Pop and minimalist movements.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $124,000
Average difference in in US dollars: $21,977
Number of lots sold in 2014: 8

50. Wu Gaozhong, Chinese
Wu Gaozhong was born in 1962 in China and graduated from Nanjing Art Institute in 1990. He created a considerable amount of controversy in 2000 when he performed Birthday on 28 May¸ for which he rented a butchered buffalo from a market, removed its viscera, spread rose petals inside of it before entering the animal’s corpse and lying naked within it for 10 minutes. He has exhibited in China, Europe and the US.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $109,110
Average difference in in US dollars: $21,962
Number of lots sold in 2014:6

The extra one: Yang Maoyuan, Chinese
Yang Maoyuan is a Chinese artist who studied at the Central Institute of Fine Arts in Beijing. He is often noted for his sculptural work which involves the shaping and misshaping of the human form. In 2009, Maoyuan created a series of replicas of classical sculptural busts created in bronze, which he sanded down and rounded out, contemporizing the traditional figures. In 2002, the artist won the Prize for Contemporary Chinese Art CCAA Award.
Maximum difference in US dollars: $55,644
Average difference in in US dollars: $21,125
Number of lots sold in 2014: 2